Amazon has known as for the UK to speed up the rollout of latest nuclear energy stations if it hopes to maintain tempo with the AI increase that can see electrical energy demand from knowledge centres soar over the approaching decade.
The world’s largest cloud-computing firm has earmarked £8 billion for contemporary UK data-centre capability by 2028, however AWS Chief Executive Matt Garman told the BBC that future websites will want “a superb supply of zero carbon, 24/7 energy” – one thing he says nuclear can uniquely ship.
“It’s one thing we plan a few years out,” he mentioned.
“We make investments forward. I believe the world goes to must construct new applied sciences. I consider nuclear is an enormous a part of that, significantly as we glance 10 years out.”
Why nuclear?
AWS already funds greater than 40 wind and photo voltaic initiatives in Britain, making it the only largest company purchaser of renewable vitality worldwide. But the intermittent nature of wind and photo voltaic means further agency, low-carbon capability is required as AI workloads multiply.
A typical hyperscale knowledge centre now attracts as a lot electrical energy as a small city, and the UK’s fleet already accounts for two.5% of nationwide energy demand. That’s earlier than the ability wanted for AI’s progress is factored in, with National Grid CEO John Pettigrew recently warning that the UK data centre industry is set to require six times the amount of power that it consumes today by 2035. That comes at a time when the UK is making an attempt to cut back the carbon emissions from producing electrical energy.
The UK Authorities has already factored within the want for extra nuclear technology to energy future AI knowledge centres, with it vowing to make the construction of nuclear projects easier. This largely focused the development of small modular reactors, which must be faster to construct than massive scale nuclear energy vegetation, like Hinkley Level C, whereas additionally taking on much less area and costing far much less.
AWS and Google have already signed agreements to construct SMRs to energy their knowledge centres within the US, and it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the primary settlement is signed within the UK. Microsoft, in the meantime, has gone a step additional. It signed a 20 12 months deal in 2024 to reopen Three Mile Island, a nuclear energy plant that was the placement of the worst nuclear catastrophe in US historical past.
Regardless of the location’s troubled previous, Micorosft is hoping the location can assist ship clear energy to its knowledge centres, and stresses that the restarted reactor is subsequent to, however ‘absolutely unbiased’ of the unit that had been concerned within the catastrophe.
For the UK, whether or not via massive reactors at websites akin to Sizewell or the promised new wave of SMRs, the Authorities faces mounting stress from each the information centre trade and traders to agency up a nuclear roadmap that retains Britain’s data-driven financial system switched on.
